


Renaissance

by Wexchester (Charmsilver)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gratuitous New Zealand, Postcards, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmsilver/pseuds/Wexchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where do demons go when they die?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renaissance

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all,
> 
> This is a fic I began writing a couple years ago, and unfortunately never finished. I have no plans to complete it, though I enjoyed writing it very much. I intended to end with Castiel becoming human and returning to Dean and Sam, but you can choose whatever ending you like. Sorry for any mistakes in canon, I haven't watched Supernatural in a long time so I don't know what's been happening in the show or in the fandom. It's set sometime after Meg's death during season 8 I guess?
> 
> Thanks for reading, and thanks to all those who still read and kudos my fics.

There was a woman  
I made love to and I remembered how, holding  
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,  
I felt a violent wonder at her presence  
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river  
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,  
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish  
called  _pumpkinseed_. It hardly had to do with her.

_\- Meditations at Lagunitas_ , Robert Hass

 

**Part 1**

 

The first postcard is smeared and dog-eared by the time it reaches Castiel. He turns it over and over in his hands, studying the pristine white beach that sprawls in a photograph on one side, and the few words that trail like sluggish ants across the reverse:

 

_You ever wonder where demons go when they die_?

 

In the corner is Castiel’s address. Or at least what is a very vague approximation of it.

_Clarence_

_God knows where_

_God knows why_

           

Each ‘God’ is underlined and emboldened, as if the writer had deliberately drawn over the letters more than once. It is decidedly odd; Castiel does not claim to know a lot about human postal services but he’s pretty certain most letters require more specific information in order to reach their recipients.

It’s possible, he supposes, that the postcard is not intended for him at all; the message and name may be a simple coincidence, slipped into his mail by mistake. There is, however, a faint sulphuric smell detectable only when Castiel presses his nose firmly against the white surface. He concedes, albeit reluctantly, that his senses may be fooling him; it is so dreadfully confusing to be human.

Still, there’s something about it that dares him to hope. It _could_ be from Meg; the handwriting is right, the crude attempt at irony is right, he can almost hear her speaking the words to him in that gritty, sardonic drawl. Why she would be sending him a postcard from somewhere called _Orewa_ , Castiel has no idea. The last time he saw Meg was outside a crypt in Lincoln Springs, Missouri. That was before the angels fell to Earth, before Castiel lost his grace. Neither Sam nor Dean has mentioned her since.

He reads it again, squinting at the words in the vain hope that they will reveal more information. When they do not, he blinks and frowns.

Does Castiel ever wonder where demons go when they die? Sure. He can only presume it is to the same place that angels go. What relevance this question has, he doesn’t know, and when he glances at the clock hanging limp from the wall, he realises he is late for work. The card slips from his fingers as he hurries to get ready – for a moment forgotten.

On his way out the door, Castiel pauses briefly to press his thumb against the white _O_ of _Orewa_. He imagines her reclining on a sandy beach somewhere, grimacing at the sand between her toes as if nothing else has ever been so deplorable. If this is where Meg is now, then perhaps she is happy, or whatever is the demon equivalent. The thought is enough to make him smile.

 

*

 

The second postcard he finds squashed into his backpack, crumpled and soft at the edges. He pinches it between his fingers and pulls it out, bewildered as to how it got there – nobody has touched his backpack but him. This time the word over the picture says _Piha_ , but the image is very similar to the last – another gorgeous beach; he flips it over and reads the scribbled note, heart pounding for reasons he cannot pin down.

 

_I hate it here. It’s kinda nice._

 

He’s not sure if she means that she hates it because it’s nice, or that it’s nice because she hates it. Meg, no doubt, took great pleasure in writing the most contradictory message possible. This time the address simply reads:

 

_Clarence_

_Squinty-eyed_

_Probably dead_

 

Cas lets out a little huff at that. Not only is it an even worse address – if you could even call it that – than the last one, but it’s also absolutely untrue. He is not _squinty-eyed_! And he is very much alive, thank you very much. Still, he carefully slips the postcard in with the other one, not wanting to lose them.

            The mystery of how they came to him remains unsolved, but Cas has encountered stranger things. Meg is a demon; he guesses she has her ways – hopefully ones that don’t involve too much blood sacrifice. More interesting is what she is doing traversing various beaches in some unknown country. Hiding, perhaps. The world has never exactly been demon-friendly, and he imagines that right now, with thousands of angels walking the earth, it’s probably even harder to go unnoticed.

He hopes she’s safe, wherever she is.

 

*

           

A few weeks pass, and Castiel finds himself back with Sam and Dean, curled up in the backseat of their car. His legs ache from being cramped into the space between two seats, his head woozy from watching the world spin on beyond the glass window. He reaches into his bag absentmindedly, looking for something, maybe, he can’t remember, and his fingers alight on a slip of card, sharp and square beneath his fingers.

Startled, he coaxes it out; it is one of Meg’s postcards – the one that says _Piha_. Cas touches the stiff edges reverently and is struck with a sudden idea.

“Sam, Dean,” he says, loud enough to startle both Sam and Dean out of their reveries. “Do you remember when we took the angel tablet from Lucifer’s crypt?”

He catches Dean glancing at Sam with a puzzled expression on his face before meeting Cas’ eye in the rear-view mirror. “You mean when _you_ took the angel tablet from Lucifer’s crypt?”

“Well – yes.”

“Yeah, I’d say I remember it pretty well,” Dean says with a trace of bitterness in his voice, like he hasn’t quite gotten over that particular betrayal. Cas doesn’t blame him.

He fiddles with the card in his hands, running his finger around the battered corners. “Meg was with us. She showed us where the crypt was.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Did she go with you afterwards – after I left?”

There’s a stifling silence. Dean meets Sam’s gaze again and shakes his head; Sam widens his eyes and presses his lips together. It is the indecipherable language of brothers, and Cas waits patiently for them to finish.

In the end it is Sam who speaks, turning in his seat, though not enough to look Castiel in the eye. “Cas,” he begins, softening his voice. “Meg died.”

His heart fumbles inside his chest. “What?”

“After you left – she took on Crowley. He killed her.”

“Oh.” Cas realises he is holding his breath and he lets it out in one big _whoosh_.  

“Yeah. I’m sorry, man. I know you two were – friends, or whatever.”

Cas shakes his head. “We weren’t.” The words feel traitorous in his mouth.

Sam and Dean say no more. Dean cranks up the volume on the stereo, never one for condolences. Cas stares down at the postcard in his lap; it doesn’t make sense. If Meg is dead, who is sending these messages to him?

 

*

 

Later, Sam stands in the doorway of Castiel’s room and regards him with sympathetic eyes. “Hey, Cas,” he says, clearing his throat. “Can I talk to you?”

 Cas nods and shifts over on the bed, clearing space for Sam to perch beside him. Outside the rain is making a dull pattering noise, and Cas finds himself drooping his head over his knees, fingers massaging at the skin around his eyes. He feels Sam pat him once, twice on the back and is grateful for the touch, however brief.

“What is it, Sam?” he hears himself asking, voice tight and rusty.

Sam hesitates, his first words turning into a small sigh. “You know,” he eventually says, “Meg said something to me, before – before she –”

“Before she died?” He sits up a little straighter.

A quick exhale. “Yeah.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, uh.” Sam frowns and worries at his bottom lip. “She said you were her unicorn.” His mouth quirks up in a wry smile when he utters the word _unicorn_. Cas meets his gaze and squints.

“Her ‘unicorn’? I’m not sure I follow.” Meg was cryptic at the best of times; it hurts Cas to remember that. He closes his eyes to dispel the dizziness that creeps up on him.

“Yeah, uh, I think what she meant was that you – you were pretty important to her, Cas. I think–” he swallows. “I think she was maybe even in love with you.”

Cas snaps his eyes open and surveys Sam, that little smile still pulling weakly at his lips. “I mean,” he starts again, “I know she was a demon, but she sure had a soft spot for you.”

“Yes.” Cas nods, suddenly understanding. “Yes. Meg – she cared for me”

“Did you – you know?” Sam fidgets. “Did you care for her too?”

“I.” Cas stops. He frowns. “I don’t know.” Everything is so jumbled up in his head.

“It’s alright, you know. If you did.” Sam smiles again and pats Cas’ knee. “I, uh, I get it.”

Oh. Of course. Sam and Ruby. Not exactly a happy love story, but Sam’s right; if anyone were to understand, it would be him. “Thank you, Sam,” he says honestly.

He gets one more pat on the back and then Sam is leaving, telling him that Dean will have dinner ready in five, if Cas feels like eating.

“Wait,” Cas says before Sam is out of earshot. He hurries off the bed and into the hallway, meeting Sam at his door.

“What is it?”

“Are you _sure_ she’s dead?”

Sam shrugs and makes an apologetic face. “Yeah, Cas. We saw Crowley stab her. She did that glowing thing and everything.”

“I see.”

“If it helps, she put up a good fight.”

Cas nods. “Yes, ah, thank you, Sam.”

“Come have some dinner. We’re gonna watch _Indiana Jones_ later, if you wanna join.” Sam squeezes his shoulder and strides along the hallway, disappearing quickly down the stairs. Cas returns to his room and sits down on the bed. He places the two postcards end to end on the bedside table, white sand gleaming in the dim bedroom light.

Where do demons go when they die?

_Well,_ Castiel thinks, lying back onto the mattress. _Perhaps they go to the beach_.

 

*

 

He steals Sam’s computer one afternoon when the brothers are out. The two postcards he places next to him on the table, and after a brief moment spent trying to remember Sam’s crash course in _Browsers_ and _Googles_ , he finally succeeds in opening up the Internet.

“Google knows everything,” Sam had once told Castiel, and while Cas had found that a rather ominous thought, he has to concede that it is rather useful. Less than a second after typing in the word _Orewa_ , Cas finds himself with a slew of results, including a map that pinpoints its exact location on the Hibiscus Coast of New Zealand’s North Island.

When he clicks the _images_ button, a multitude of photographs very similar to the one on the postcard appear – of a gorgeous sandy coastline with sapphire waves; plus people on horseback meandering along the beach; a quaint summery-looking seaside town. Not remarkable, not by any means, but certainly beautiful.

He opens a new window and this time types in the word _Piha_. According to a website called _Wikipedia_ , it is another New Zealand beach, however this time the photographs show a more rugged landscape, punctuated by rocks and high waves. It is even more beautiful, perhaps, than Orewa. He zooms out on the map and compares the two locations, discovering that Piha lies further south, and on the opposite coast.

So Meg is in New Zealand. Or, an individual pretending to be Meg is in New Zealand. Either way, _somebody_ is sending Castiel postcards from the small island nation, and he is receiving them, in spite of the absurd and objectionable addresses. Quietly he shuts the laptop screen and leans back in his chair, thinking. If Meg is indeed dead, as Sam assures him she is, then she couldn’t possibly be sending him messages from far-off countries, could she? Then again, Castiel muses, no one has ever been able to identify where demons go when they die, or angels for that matter. They go neither to Hell nor Heaven, nor Purgatory.

Perhaps some are simply reinstated on Earth, in backwater towns and isolated areas; a lucky few who get a second chance. He imagine Balthazar scaling the rocky slopes of the Himalayas; Zachariah wading through the harsh Gedrosian Desert in King Alexander’s footsteps; Anael reading fairy tales to tiny children in Yeniseysk. And he thinks of Meg, kicking back on the beaches of New Zealand, drinking liquor from the bottle and laughing because she got away, she survived.

 

*

 

Time passes and Castiel barely notices. They spend more time on the road than at home, and he becomes intimately acquainted with the feeling of lumpy mattresses and sharp bedsprings, mustard yellow drapes and peeling wallpaper. Motels are a special kind of hell, he decides; he misses the quiet gloom of his own room in the bunker – the white-painted walls and the soft comforter that Dean had thrown over his bed.

He is tired, he realises as they steer through another city roundabout. Tired and homesick for a home he’s not even sure he has.

When they finally find a motel for the night, Castiel staggers in through the door of his room, fully intending to collapse onto the bed and bury his feelings beneath a thick sheen of unconsciousness.  However his plans are waylaid when he discovers a new postcard on his pillow, sitting idly underneath one complimentary mint, as if waiting for his arrival. He picks it up and regards the bold handwriting, the charming peninsula and sunny twin beaches on the photograph.

       _Mount Maunganui_ , it says. And on the reverse side, in Meg’s familiar bold handwriting: _it’s been raining here for 3 days. Don’t let the picture deceive you._ There’s no address, just a crude drawing of a figure wearing a trench coat with big, circular eyes and a pair of spindly wings. Cas chuckles and rubs his thumb over the pen marks. Meg is no artist, that’s for certain. He slips off his boots, shrugs off his sweater, his jeans, his shirt, and crawls under the sheets. His fingers pull the postcard underneath the pillow, and as he drifts off they curl around it, like flowers closing in the dark.

 

*

 

“So that’s that then,” Dean says, dusting the charcoal from his hands. The ritual, now complete, was an underwhelming affair. Smoke twists from the blackened sigils on the floor, curling limply around their ankles. The gates of Heaven have been reopened; Castiel feels it like a heavy throb, a second heartbeat, an aching drum.

            Sam and Dean both turn to him, their faces grim and hollow. “This is it then; E.T. goes home and all that.” Dean looks tired – too tired even to make a new joke.

“You’ll be sure to visit, yeah?” Sam smiles weakly, extending an arm out to pat Cas on the shoulder.

It shouldn’t surprise him, really. With everything that’s happened they haven’t had a chance to talk about what Cas might do next, and now that he has his – well, _somebody’s_ – grace back, it perhaps seemed logical for him to return to Heaven and reconvene with his family.

But it does surprise him – the resigned way in which the two brothers now look at Cas; it makes him ache indefinably. “I thought,” he says, feeling a frown seep across his face, “that I might stay here. With you. If that’s acceptable.” He shifts uncomfortably, barely able to look either of them in the eye.

Dean’s entire stance changes at this admission. The tension in his shoulders leaks away and relief pours over his features like sunlight breaking through clouds. “Cas,” he says gruffly, pulling him into a tight embrace. “you always have a place with us, you hear me?”

“I –“ he stops short, throat swollen shut. “Thank you.”

Sam steps closer and touches his shoulder – warmly, this time. “Dean’s right,” he says, smiling. “You’re family, Cas. Always have been.” There’s a momentary pause, then Sam speaks again. “We should get going,” he says. “I’m beat.”

Dean nods, side-eyeing Cas but saying nothing else. They walk out of the gloomy warehouse side by side, blinking in the sharp afternoon glare, like bears emerging from their winter quarters.

 

*

 

After the world has once again pieced itself back together, life is quiet. Cas and the Winchesters take things slow; rediscovering old routines, sleeping in on Sunday mornings, even limiting their hunts to within the state. ( _It’s not like we’re getting any younger_ , Dean says over a plate of blueberry pancakes one morning.)

Cas hears nothing else from Meg, and as the days meander on he begins to wonder about her. Where is she now? Still terrorising the beaches in the Land of the Long White Cloud? On occasion he fishes the postcards from out of his bedside drawer and studies them, if only to convince himself that they are, indeed, real.

The stolen grace throbs inside him, simmering beneath his skin; it twinges like a prosthetic limb, a transplanted organ. But he’s not ready to give it up just yet – not ready to become human once again, this time for good. No going back. _Tomorrow I’ll do it_ , he says to himself every day. And every tomorrow he never quite can.

 

*

 

A month later, with still no word from Meg, Castiel’s gnawing worry wins out and he buys a generic postcard from the local store, resolving that if Meg isn’t writing to him anymore, perhaps it’s because he hasn’t said anything back. Presumably she has no idea whether or not he’s even receiving her postcards at all.

So he sets pen to paper, or postcard, as it were, and scribbles out a quick note before he can change his mind.

 

_Dare I ask about your existential state?_

 

He has no idea what to write for the address; Meg’s were cryptic and should never have worked, but Castiel guesses this isn’t your regular postal service, so he simply writes, _Meg, New Zealand_ , and hopes it will suffice.

After that, well, he tosses up between leaving it under his pillow and performing some kind of blood ritual to send it off. Careful deliberation leads him to slipping it in the mailbox with the little red flag sticking up. Simple is best, after all.

He only half expects a reply, and is surprised when just one week later a postcard falls out of his cereal box and into his breakfast bowl, lightly dusted with bits of crushed Cocoa Puffs. Dean raises an eyebrow, but a loud clatter from the direction of the basement distracts him just long enough for Cas to smuggle it into his pocket and make a quick escape.

In the sanctuary of his bedroom he glances at the picture. It’s a small town, nestled on a curved coast and illuminated by miles of sparkling blue water. _Gisborne_ , the large white letters say, and underneath, _Out East_. Castiel flips it over, startled to see much more writing than usual scribbled in large black letters over the card.

 

_My my, Clarence, I’m impressed. Found your postcard (Kansas, huh?) all folded up in my underwear. You trying to tell me something, big boy?_

_And hey, you can ask, but I don’t have an answer. One minute I’m dead, the next I’m all washed up on some pathetic island in the middle of the ocean. Not much better, if you ask me._

 

Her letters are so big they fill up the entire surface of the postcard. In the tiny space left for the address, Meg has simply written, _Cas, not actually dead_. He is beginning to understand that logic has very little authority when it comes to demonic mail services. Or whatever this is.

Nonetheless, he is pleased to hear from Meg, although her answer sheds no more light on how she ended up where she is. Castiel sighs and slides the postcard into his drawer with the others; he’ll write back later.

 

*

 

They correspond for several weeks, and Cas tracks Meg’s progress on an old map of New Zealand he found in one of the bunker’s many cabinets. She’s travelling gradually southwards, swapping from east to west and back every now and again. The beaches are all very similar, and when Cas asked Meg why she never sends him postcards from any other kind of geographical location, she answered with a brief and typically cryptic response: _Guess I’m just thirsty for salt._

Autumn passes; leaves leap suicidally from trees and drift to the ground like large golden snowflakes; clouds converge and unleash the contents of their swollen bellies onto the dry-mouthed world. The boys hunker down, cradled in the warmth of their impenetrable home. The domestic life poses problems of its own, but they adapt to it well, and Cas’ heart fills with happiness every time he catches one of the brothers smiling. Things are far from perfect, but they’re undoubtedly better than they’ve been in a long time.

Dean spends a lot of his time tinkering with various pieces of electrical equipment: old radios and record players; microscopes and EMF meters. He works on the Impala too, and even a few of the other cars in the hold; smoothing out bumps and scratches with careful fingers. Cas sometimes watches him, enraptured by Dean’s furrowed brow, and pleased at how he occasionally talks to Cas, explaining this and that about what he’s doing. Dean’s hands, Castiel realises, are skilled at more than just holding a weapon. He says so one day, but Dean only snorts and motions for the screwdriver. “In another life, maybe,” he mutters, almost to himself, and Cas is left blinking, aching.

Sam turns to other pursuits. He wakes early and goes out running every morning, returning red-faced and chill-bitten, but otherwise refreshed and happy. The vast library is still his favourite haunt, and he spends his newfound free time teaching himself Hebrew and Ancient Greek. Castiel helps out when he can, already proficient in every human language, and Sam repays him with book recommendations. (“Have you read _Cat’s Cradle_ , Cas? It’s one of Dean’s favourites.” He hadn’t. It’s very good.)

Meg writes almost every week, usually short quips about the New Zealand landscape that make Cas huff with amusement. She says nothing more about her death, and Cas stops asking. In turn, he tells her stories about his days with the Winchesters – brief anecdotes that he hopes are enough to make her laugh. He doesn’t share too many details; Meg is still a demon, after all, and he knows he ought not to trust her.

So he is caught off guard when a postcard arrives, slithering out from between the pages of his copy of _Crime and Punishment_ , reading nothing except the words _Oriental Bay. Come and find me._

Cas knows that he should run a mile. Logically, he should have done so long ago; should have never encouraged Meg by sending her his own messages. But Castiel’s relationship with the demon has never followed the laws of logic. Dean and Sam both hate her – and rightly so; she has caused them no small amount of misery. There was a time when Meg would have loved nothing more than to slit both Winchesters’ throats, and Cas cannot deny that he finds that thought more than slightly hard to swallow.

However, she has proven herself, at least to him, worthy of the benefit of the doubt. She has seen Cas at his lowest point – quite literally out of his mind – and yet she has never judged him for the things she witnessed. _She said you were her unicorn_ , Sam had told him.

Inside Castiel’s head, several things slot into place.

 

*

 

After dinner that night Cas dares to broach the subject with the brothers. He clears his throat, awkwardly, tentatively, flinching when Dean glances up from the sink, hands submerged in murky dishwater. “What’s up?” he asks, perching a bowl on the growing pile of dishes beside the sink.

            Sam closes the fridge door and turns to face him, apple in hand. “You good, Cas?”

“Uh.” He closes his mouth, frowning. “There’s something I need to speak with you about,” he says, gaze catching itself on the corner of the window where a tiny spider is building a nest. “I’m going away for a while.”

There’s a splash as Dean’s fingers slip and a spoon falls into the water. “Back to Heaven? Cas, I thought you were done with that.” His hands grip the sides of the sink like a man drowning.

“No,” Cas says quickly. “To New Zealand.”

“What?” Sam looks incredulous. “Why?”

“Because –“ Cas chews the inside of his cheek. “There’s someone I need to see.”

Dean dries his hands on the tea-towel and turns to eye Castiel warily. “Who the Hell do you know in New Zealand?”

Cas sniffs, affronted. “I have travelled all over the world as an angel. Is it so hard to believe that I’ve been to New Zealand too?” He hadn’t, actually, but that’s hardly the point.

“Alright, alright.” Dean wrinkles his nose. “Who is it then?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Sam shuffles, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Dean bristles. “ _Cas_ ,” he growls, voice dangerously low.

Castiel sighs. “I’m sorry, Dean. I don’t expect to be gone long, if that’s any comfort.”

Remarkably, Dean breathes out and rearranges his face into something calmer. “Well, it’s not like we can stop you.” He sniffs and turns back to the dirty dishes. “Bring back some presents, at least.”

Cas looks to Sam, perplexed. “It’s what people do when they go away,” Sam explains. “Bring back presents. For their, uh, family.”

“Oh.” _For their family_. Castiel smiles, glowing on the inside. “I will. And I’ll call,” he adds as an afterthought. “This isn’t – I’m not running away.”

“You’re good, Cas.” Sam smiles, lifting a hand. “Take care of yourself. We’ll be here when you get back.”

He nods at Sam, and Dean’s turned back. “Goodbye,” he says, and spreads his wings.

 

 

**Part 2**

 

The sun is blazing when he lands, heating the sand beneath his shoes and throwing glittering lights over the waves. However the heat is dulled by a strong wind that sweeps over the beach, kicking up sprays of water and pulling seagulls off course. Cas turns on his feet and gazes across the harbour to where the city sits, tall towers seeming to sway in the wind. This is New Zealand’s capital – the southernmost city of the North Island, otherwise known as Wellington.

A woman sidles up next to him, though at first he does not recognise her. She has dark, wavy hair, amused eyes and a smirk that would make a tiger slink away in fear. “Hey, Clarence,” she says, and belatedly Castiel realises that this is Meg. Or at least Meg’s vessel. The familiar grotesque face of her demon is gone, leaving behind a visage that is all too human.

A hand clamps down around his heart; he has made a terrible mistake. “You’re not Meg,” he says.

She makes a playfully offended face and pats Castiel’s shoulder, looming into his space just like Meg would have done. “You seem disappointed,” she murmurs, breath rushing warm over his cheek.

Cas frowns, confused. The woman who stands before him is not a demon, but her mannerisms are just like Meg’s.

When he doesn’t speak, Meg rocks back and rolls her eyes. “It’s me, you ass. I got downgraded.” She gestures to her body. “Stuck in this meatsuit forever.”

“And your vessel?”

She shrugs. “Dead.”

He cocks his head to the side, mulling over this new information. Perhaps this is the answer, then; Meg died as a demon, and was brought back as a human. Suddenly she laughs and pats his cheek none too gently with one manicured hand. “There’s my Cas,” she says, “keep making that face and it’ll be permanent one day.”

“You’re human,” Castiel says, ignoring her.

“Quick on the uptake, aren’t you? Yeah, I’m human. And it sucks, thanks for asking.”

“Sam and Dean said you died.”

“Yep. Crowley knifed me good. Next minute I’m washed up on some beach. Thought it was Heaven, you know. _God fucked up big time_ , I thought. Ha!” Her eyes gleam, caught in the sunlight. “It wasn’t Heaven; it was this place.”

“New Zealand.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s –“

“Fucked up, I know. Tell me about it.” A gust of wind catches on her hair and whips it into a frenzy. Objectively speaking, Meg’s vessel is quite attractive, especially so in the light of summer, her skin smattered with freckles. That has never mattered to him before, but now he finds himself appreciating the soft contours of her skin, how it clashes with the hard line of her sly smile. He says, “the sea is beautiful.”

She snorts. “Sure, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

He regards her with one raised eyebrow. “I had gathered from your postcards that you were _into that kind of thing_. I believe the exact words you used were, ‘ _A thirst for salt’._ ”

She looks up at him, a half amused smile on her face. “I wasn’t talking about the goddamn ocean, Clarence.” Her head shakes and she turns back to view the pulling water. “This country isn’t like America, you know.”

Silently, Castiel agrees. It is different here, in ways he cannot name. Perhaps it is the wind, slicing into his cheeks, sharp as a knife. Or perhaps it is the way the sun sets, sinking beneath the waves like a crippled sailing vessel. He presses his lips together, calculating the taste of the sea air, the insinuating grit of sand. It is fresh. Clean.

Beside him Meg stirs, as if awaking from a dream. “C’mon,” she says. “We’ve got a boat to catch.”

 

*

 

It takes the ferry a little over three hours to cross the strait between islands, and although the sea is calm, the vessel still rocks unpleasantly. Meg, looking vaguely queasy, pinches a packet of seasickness pills from an unsuspecting woman’s handbag. Cas narrows his eyes at her in disapproval, watching as she pops a couple and washes them down with water.

“What?” She makes a face at him. “It’s either this or I puke all over you.”

“Stealing is immoral.”

She laughs, loud and abrupt. “Wow, Cas, did you figure that one out all on your own? Last time I checked you weren’t such a saint yourself.” He holds her gaze, but she only chuckles again and pats his knee. “Relax, you’re in good company. At least you’ve still got your mojo.”

Cas frowns and stares at a strangely shaped watermark on the ceiling. “It’s not _my_ mojo,” he sighs.

Meg cocks her head to the side. “Right. You wanna explain that one?”

“It belongs to an angel named Theo. I killed him and took his grace.”

“What, your own grace not good enough for you?”

He looks over at her, almost sheepish. “It was taken from me. After you died I did some things… and my grace…” He stops himself, shaking his head lightly.

Meg laughs, bright and genuine. “What did I tell you? We’re really not so different, you and me.” Her eyes sparkle with amusement, like little sun-lit gems. “So how long were you human?”

“Several months.”

“No kidding?”

“I got a job.”

She snorts in surprise. “Jesus, Cas, that’s some hard-core immersion. What’d you do? Deliver meals to old people?”

He shifts as the boat gives a great heave and lets itself down the side of a wave. The captain’s voice rings throughout the ferry, estimating their arrival time at thirty minutes. “I was a store clerk,” he says.

“Oh, _snore_. That’s boring even for you.”

Outside the forested country of the Marlborough Sounds bobs by, made misty by the sheen of salty water on the windowpane. “It was… challenging, but not altogether unpleasant. I learned some skills.”


End file.
